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If more aggressive revenue sharing can support a floor of at least ~$170M, why do they need to institute a hard cap when the luxury tax exists?
The owners have every incentive to frame a salary cap as the only solution. Not to mention, these numbers include benefits, etc. https://t.co/au3VxZnlIT
— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) August 13, 2026
I have been following the Mark Walter issue. The fact that he sold the Lakers after only 14 months and the fact he is under investigation is probably not a coincidence but that is just speculation.
It will be interesting to see if he also sells the Dodgers. If he does I doubt if Ohtani would leave. He isn’t going to walk away from that contract and if he demanded a trade there are few teams who would take that deal on. The Mets could afford it but why would he want to play for them? The Yankees might be a possibility but I bet he stays in LA. If a sale would occur I assume some other mega wealthy billionare would buy the team and they would continue on.
For what it is worth, and I have said this before on this board, I do not think the Dodgers will win the WS this year. I have my doubts they even win the NL pennant. While they still have a plethora of marquee names their core is getting old and less productive. Their calling card has been to coast along during the regular season then turn it on in October but that is a dangerous game to play. They were very very fortunate to beat the Jays last year in that Game 7. I think their luck runs out this year.
And I agree with the Thomas Nestico post above from Brian. Manfred and the owners have tried to convince everyone that MLB is dealing with an existential crisis but a more realistic take is that they want a salary cap to increase the valuations of more teams. Yes the gap in team revenues should be addressed but it could be accomplished by making the CBT more stringent instead of blowing things up.
Its always hard to say about negotiations because stuff can be happening behind the scenes that no one knows. So are they getting anything done, hard to say. The mlb puts stuff out there but it all works under a cap. The players put stuff out there but it works without a cap. So it is a question if the cap issue is effecting other discussions. Could be there wont be any discussions til thats resolved. Any real ones anyway. I hope that the players union is strong. Unions in this country have been gutted by stupid right to work laws and the general apathy of the workforce companies hire im that just dont really care, if that place leaves or whatever, they will just move on down to the next pasture. So im all in for the players, if i have to miss a few games, thats fine.
Somebody has to say something other than ‘both sides will dig in their heels because it’s all about the money’. Get rid of the fear and get rid of the agents. And something could be worked out.
Agents do not have a prominent role in the negotiations. Boras offers his opinions, but of course, they are always slanted toward the players.
willie, you are correct in that a lot of the public comments are probably a negotiating tactic, at least I hope so. I would like to think that Manfred and the owners are smart enough to know that they aren’t getting a hard salary cap but they know they have to stake out that hardcore position now in order to get the tougher CBT penalties.
Or maybe both sides are really delusional and we are looking at an opening day 2028.
True gscottar. It depends on how much ownership believes the public is on its side. They also throw out how the nfl has a salary cap and that produces a better chance for all teams to win. Which is all bogus. In the nfl, injuries more than anything else has a lot to say about your season. All teams have injuries but not all injuries are equal. Like you say, im hoping they are working somewhere towards the middle but we will see.
A hard floor and a hard ceiling spreads the money around more fairly. Every player gets a piece of the pie if only for a while. No player gets to hog 20M$, 30M$+++. Get over the fear that somebody might not be getting enough, whatever ‘enough’ means. With a hard floor and a hard ceiling there’s still plenty of money for everybody.
Something equitable can be worked out. Negotiate the details.
The agents are present, if not in body, then in soul.
I’m not sure the NFL having a salary cap is really that beneficial for MLB. Did you know that in the last 25 years the AFC representative in the Super Bowl has been either the Patriots or the Chiefs 15 times! That isn’t much parity.
I guess you could say that at least it gives small markets like KC a chance to have a dynasty but if you think the championship is going to be determined by different teams each year then you will be disappointed because smart teams are going to rise up and do their thing. It turns out that drafting Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes was pretty smart.
I look at the current situation in MLB and it seems mostly good. You have about a $12 billion industry in terms of total revenues, with teams valued at anywhere from around $1.5 billion (Marlins) to $8.5 billion (Yankees).
Revenues are shared 100% for national media deals, and 48% of local media deals. The luxury tax incentivizes smart player investing and development.
It looks like the system is pretty good. The part about financial parity can only go so far – legacy teams such as the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox have built their value through many years of smart, and often lucky transactions and investments. It could be anywhere from decades to centuries before we see the Marilns become more valuable than say the Phillies. But the Marlins, at least in the 2025 data I am seeing, ran a plus $53 million operating margin while the Yankees and Dodgers had negative operating income. The Mets had a whopping $213 million operating loss.
My advice is to skip the salary cap issue – I just don’t think that can be forced in without a work stoppage. Work on the luxury tax to perhaps make it a little better, and perhaps bump the local media revenue sharing percent to say 55. As a bone to throw the players maybe tie the minimum salary to the average change in value of MLB teams.
You will never get true parity, but it’s never been there. The “haves” are pretty much baked in to the system, and once in awhile a “have not”, or lesser team will make a nice run like the recent Rangers title, and DiamondBacks World Series run. But to make the goal to have a team like that almost every year is unrealistic.
You got a great thing here. Keep the basic system you have, make a few tweaks here and there to keep the machine running, and let’s get on with playing baseball!
That is a well worded statement Mike. People act like dynasties are new. From 1949 to 1964 either the Yankees or Dodgers were in the World Series every year but one. This has been going on for a long time.
That is true gscottar, very true. But in those days things were a bit different. No free agency. Also fans had very little to say other than choosingn not to come to ballpark. No social media so no outrage over stuff like there is today.
An interesting web. Not sure about the “illegal” accusation, but it isn’t something every other team can do.
How do the Dodgers carry an unlimited payroll?
Filings uncovered by @NickNemo17 show roughly $1.45 billion in debt for American Media Productions, the entity behind SportsNet LA and the Dodgers' 25-year, $8.35 billion Charter deal, sitting on the balance sheets of 5 life… https://t.co/TDWIARMmdY
— Jake (@EconomPic) August 18, 2026
Interesting. Related party transactions can and have been used as a means to keep a business afloat, as you can manipulate the value of assets to some degree, and push the credit side off your balance sheet and on to the related party.
But at least for public companies, related party transactions get a lot of scrutiny in audits and if anything is fraudulent you will get busted. Companies have been forced to shut down due to unscrupulous related party valuations. We will see if this results in anything underhanded in the case of the Dodgers.
Very true Mike. I deal with this issue a lot in my job, although not exactly what Walters is alleged to be doing. Not disclosing related parties is a big no-no. I saw this morning that he also is now in talks to sell his stake in Chelsea FC. Will the Dodgers be next?
I don’t know if there are enough dots to connect his business dealings to why the Dodgers run the payroll they run. That could be a very tangled web to untangle. Even if you could prove that you would still have to acknowledge that the Dodgers are not owned by the wealthiest owner or owner group in MLB.
I am personally rooting for a Brewers-Rays World Series this year so the baseball world can then move onto the next “crisis.”
I don’t think baseball will be able to move on until the fallout from the collapse of this apparent house of cards settles. I wonder how this will impact the MLB-Players negotiations. It could slow things down.
The timeframe to get a resolution on his legal issues is a big unknown. If charges are filed and a trial occurs and a conviction is obtained and appeals are filed it could take years. I would hope the fate of the CBA isn’t directly tied to this one issue.
There used to be a guy around here always saying ‘its not about baseball’ and warning of ‘off shore interests’ and ‘the man behind the curtain’. Oceans of dark money sloshing around off camera and baseball being tossed about by the waves.
There are a lot of different ways to measure wealth and capacity to spend, not to mention the fact that most people who comment on it, myself included, are operating blind or with very limited information since the books for these teams (except the Braves) are not open to the public. But based on what I have read over the years I don’t think the Dodgers are the wealthiest team in baseball. Do they generate the most revenue? Maybe, but again it would depend on how it is defined. Are there teams of equal or similar wealth who produce a lot less winning on the field? I feel confident in saying yes to that one.
I am not defending Mark Walter nor am I saying that the Dodgers don’t have financial advantages. I have never said that. What I have said is that drawing a straight line from their financial status to the reason they have won back to back championships seems very simplistic and lazy to me and doesn’t explain why other wealthy teams routinely fail. It is my opinion they are being used a convenient boogeyman by Manfred and others to get a salary cap which is why I am hoping they get knocked out of the playoffs this year (unless it means the Cubs going to the world series, then I take it back.)
So if the Dodgers’ financial practices are exposed as being improper, the justification for a cap is diminished. Maybe this will help negotiations, not hurt. If it gets cleared up relatively quickly, that is…
Brian, that is a good point. I suppose it could be viewed that way. Currently the argument has always been that the Dodgers have been playing by the rules therefore the rules need to be changed to create a more equal system but if it is discovered that they have not been playing by the rules then yes that might change the argument.
But I still think focusing on one team only is not the best approach. If I were tasked with coming up with an argument to justify a hard salary cap I would probably use numbers like jnevel has in the past where you look at the last couple of decades and examine how many regular season wins, playoff wins, and world series championships were won by teams with a top 10 payroll vs a non-top 10 payroll. I don’t think that tells the entire story but at least it illustrates certain trends based on a higher volume of evidence.
Saying that all of MLB’s financial problems are because of one team seems kind of flimsy to me. It lets teams like the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and Cubs off the hook. Why don’t those teams have more to show for all of their spending? Why don’t those teams have higher rated farm systems? Especially the Yankees and Mets. I just have a hard time believing those two teams couldn’t have more recent WS titles if they were ran better. And I think dismissing the Dodgers success as a product of money only is not accurate.
We need to raise the CBT tax rates, take away draft picks for violators, eliminate salary deferrals, and implement a CBT salary floor to address the welfare teams who pocket the money.
It is worth a chuckle…
Work to bring back the Expos is temporarily on hold while we start up several life insurance companies
— Montreal Expos (@Montreal_Expos) August 20, 2026
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